Legal and ethical contexts in my digital practice.
Ethical Dilemma: A teacher is on duty outside in the school grounds during a lunch break. A fight breaks out between a couple of students' and others gather around including some who pull out their phones and start recording the incident. The teacher moves to break up the incident and the students are dispersed as other teachers also come in to help. The two students involved in the fight are taken away to a D.P.
Later there appears online, on youtube, a video recording of the fight. The teacher who was on duty hears about it and views it to see what was recorded as they have an online connection to the student who posted the video.
What should they do?
Analyse: The issue appears fairly straight forward. The student who posted the video is in the wrong...right?
There are a number of possible issues that arise from this situation. Using the Ethical Decision making model (Ehrich et al., 2011), see below, we can look at the possible options and implications for the teacher.
1. Should the student be reported to school management / authorities for publicising content that is of an inappropriate type. (Professional Ethics, institutional context, public interest, organisational culture, society and community, legal issues, policies, global context). School policy and law regarding appropriate online content and viewer ages restrictions.
2. Should the a request be made to Youtube that the video be removed due its content. (NB: I have personally done this myself in the past when requested) (legal issues, policies, global context, society and community, public interest).
3. Is the student who posted the video the one who took it? (legal issues, policies, public interest, global context, society and community) This raises concerns about who the content was acquired.
4. Is the video clear enough that people are readily identifiable? (legal issues, policies, society and community) This is an example of a potential breach of a person/peoples privacy and their rights not to have content publicly posted without their consent.
5. While technically not a breach of the privacy act, as written, it is dubious in terms of its moral standpoint.
There are possibly other aspects to this issue however, the teachers is left with (as I see it) only a few choices based on the situation.
1. Do nothing (not really acceptable in my view).
2. Report the student to management.
3. Report the video to Youtube (request takedown).
Implictions
If the teacher does nothing they are in effect condoning the behaviour, both the fight itself, the recording thereof and the posting of the content in a public space.
Reporting it to management does place the responsibility to deal with the issues with another person/people however, the teacher is upholding their moral and ethical standards by acting.
The school (organisation) then has the opportunity to act and apply its own policies (ethical grounded) to the incident.
The posting of a fight online/on social media while not technically illegal in and of itself does fall into the realm of cyberbullying. The posting of content that identifies students and possibly staff, may have longer term consequences for those identified. Thus the school needs to take action and develop robust policies to deal with situations such as this.
Thus the community can see the way in which the school and its staff and students handle issues involving digital technology from an ethical and possibly legal standpoint.
References
Ehrich, L. C., Kimber, M., Millwater, J., & Cranston, N. (2011). Ethical dilemmas: A model to understand teacher practice. Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice, 17(2), 173-185.
Privacy Act 1993, (2017). (New Zealand)
Retrieved on 11 March, 2018 from http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1993/0028/latest/DLM296639.html
Dalziel, K. (2009) Privacy in schools: A guide to the Privacy Act for principals, teachers and boards of trustees. (Wellington). (New Zealand). Office of the Privacy Commissioner
Retrieved on 11 March, 2018 from: https://www.privacy.org.nz/assets/Files/Brochures-and-pamphlets-and-pubs/Privacy-in-Schools-September-2009.pdf
PPTA. (2017) Photographing / filming students in the classroom and at school. (Wellington). (New Zealand).
Retrieved on 11 March, 2018 from: http://ppta.org.nz/dmsdocument/538
Kia Ora Troy,
ReplyDeleteWow.. This is a well thought out masterpiece. You obviously have a solid insight to the legal and ethical contexts in your digital practice. I for one certainly value your comments.
Nga mihi nui ki a koe.
Fred Whata
Hi Troy,
ReplyDeleteThis type of situation is becoming more and more common with more and more students having phones with cameras in their pockets. The students with phones are getting younger and younger. The three possible solutions you identified are the main courses of action. A course of action which would follow on from reporting the incident to the Senior Management would be to contact the family of the student and to work through the possible consequences with them and the student. It is an opportunity for teaching and learning about how to stay safe on the internet and also how to protect the privacy of other people by not posting without their permission. There are many ethical dilemmas in this situation both for the teacher and the student. We all need to assess the situation and think about the results of our actions before we make them in these situations, hasten slowly!!